Six years ago when i first met Joy, i somehow convinced her to run a half marathon with me even though neither one of us had run more than a 5k before. It was early on in our dating timeline and i had some reservation about asking a girl i basically had just met to a date seven months into the future, but something inside told me just go for it. Looking back I think training together for the half-marathon was something that we really bonded over time with and got us to where we are now.

This year knowing that we were trying to get pregnant we only signed up to do the 5k instead of the halfathon, and it worked out well since of course Joy did get knocked up and wouldn’t have been able to do it. My sister joined us as well as she missed out on our half marathon for reasons i forget now.

Friday we went to the Health & Fitness Expo to pick up our bibs and t-shirts. I was disappointed that the 5k only got a hanes t-shirt, while all the other ones got an annual tech shirt, because this weekend ended up being so humid even in the morning. The cool thing about this year’s race was that it was Alice and Wonderland themed so it seemed so appropriate since we’re naming our daughter Alice as well.

I was hoping to pick up a new hat but unfortunately i’m not a fan of most running caps because they’re always so flimsy and thats all they had. After we picked up everything we headed out to Downtown Disney to have dinner with the cousins who drove up to meet up with us.

The Redondo Beach 10K was the first 10K that i’ve ran since the Santa Monica 10K in 2010 and it was a rough one. This race was particularly fun because Joy and I were able to meet up with Eric from LVI at the beginning of the race, and bumped into Tony in the middle of the run.

I had one month to train for the race, and i was on a really good training schedule up until last weekend when i pulled my hamstring, quad, and calf on on my right leg. So this past week i hadn’t been able to run. Things were going smoothly for the first 3 miles, but as we hit the ocean at mile 4 both knees started acting up, and by mile 5 i had a slight limp to my run. Yet somehow i managed not to stop running and powered up the last hill and through the finish line to still beat my previous mark of 1:03:40.

There were no medals given out for this event but we were given two free beers for finishing and afterwards went out to Casa Arigato for breakfast afterwards.

Without motivation i’m just a lump on the couch. I decided early in the year that i was going to run a 5k and a 10k and some how ended up skipping the 5k and going straight to the Redondo Beach Superbowl 10k. With only a month to train i was pretty hesitant after i sent in my money but its been a decent amount of time to train. Last night we did probably our longest mid-week run and went 4 straight miles in about 40 minutes. Thats probably the longest run i’ll do before next week’s race but i feel pretty confident as long as it doesn’t rain.

Incidentally this week I got an e-mail from Disney stating that for the Labor Day Weekend Halfathon, they also added a 10k and 5k to the list of available runs. When i ran the Halfathon six years ago, the best part of the race was the first three miles where we got to run through the park before heading out to Anaheim, so i figured we get the best part of the race without all the fluff at the end. Nina also signed up for the 5k and the Diaper Dash for crawlers for Kaylee. It should be a fun weekend.